The disclosure relates to heavy equipment for surface mine field loading operations such as human-operated and/or autonomous power shovels, drag lines, and the like, and more particularly, systems used on such equipment to measure the net weight of excavated material in each load.
In large scale surface mining operations, excavating equipment of immense proportions is used to excavate and load material. Excavation is usually performed by power shovels with a bucket capacity of dozens of tons per scoop.
Measurement systems have been developed to determine the net weight of material in the power shovel bucket as it is transferred to the truck. However, upon determining that the net weight of the load exceeds required weight, the excavation equipment may be forced to dump a portion of the excavated material, causing the increase of an excavation cycle time and, thus, higher overall labor and maintenance costs.